


the dream of a waking man

by enemyofperfect



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Weariness, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Post-Dishonored: Death of the Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-19 12:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22710811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enemyofperfect/pseuds/enemyofperfect
Summary: "Old habits," Billie said, "go down fighting."
Relationships: Billie Lurk | Meagan Foster & The Outsider
Comments: 14
Kudos: 25
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	the dream of a waking man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loveandthetruth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveandthetruth/gifts).



He looked like a body pulled from the river, pale and soft-skinned from time underwater. Only his eyes betrayed the illusion, being unclouded and unmistakably alive. So that was an irony.

The course of Billie's life was full of twists and turns, but this might have been the strangest one yet. She had custody of an ex-god, newly mortal and -- taken by his looks, at least -- barely even a man. In the complete unfamiliarity of the moment, her mind turned down old paths, wondering what he might be worth to the right bidder. One might ask him for secrets and now-useless blessings. Another might mount him on her wall.

He had been holding his cup of tea for a while now. Minutes, at least. Steam had ceased to rise from its surface, and Billie wondered abruptly if he had forgotten how to drink.

Then he spoke, his voice as softly contemplative as when it haunted her dreams. "You gave up so much for Daud's dream of revenge, only to give my life back when you could have destroyed me."

The words pushed her shoulders back and set an uncomfortable straightness in her spine -- old habits holding her upright against the instinct to curl in a defensive hunch. She knew she was no hero.

But he was still speaking. "It would be a strange choice to reverse yourself again now. But you're considering it, aren't you?" He turned then, fixing her with a pale, wincing gaze. It was unsettling to see him look so uncertain, even if half of it was only for the too-bright gleam of firelight.

"Not seriously," she said. It would have been kinder to deny it outright, but honesty was what was left in her hands, worn thin like a much-used knife. Maybe it was even what he needed: she watched the bare, huddled shape of him ease just enough to let the light pool differently on the snuff-black of his coat, the candle-wax of his skin.

It was the most a couple of children picked up off the street could hope for, perhaps -- that when their rescuers inevitably weighed mercy against self-interest, they came down on the side of mercy once more.

Forty years old, and she still thought like the desperate kid Daud had taken under his wing. You could peel back the layers one by one: ship captain, Whaler, starveling thief. Each painted over, but each of them still there.

"Old habits," Billie added, "go down fighting."

For some reason that made him laugh, and the sound was as eerie as the rest of him -- for a moment. Then it was just the breathless chuckle of a giddy boy. The two sides of him warred in her mind, each overlapping the other.

"They do," he said at last, and as he faced her, she could finally see him as just one thing, the half-grown child and ancient watcher melded into one fragile, lonely shape. "How long will it take me to stop reaching for secrets no longer within my grasp?"

So that was it. He had never feared her betrayal, only the loss of what had been his for so many centuries. It must feel like shedding an old, long-worn skin, to walk bare of that shadowed knowledge.

"You'll have to let me know," she said, surprising herself as much as him. He could put down his cold tea and disappear into the streets in an instant, she well knew. Perhaps more to the point, so could she.

But Anton was dead, and Daud was dead, and Deirdre was long dead. A god had died, too, and in his place there was only a young man caught on the cusp between one self and the next, meeting her gaze with wet and strangely human eyes.

She gave him a nod and watched him return it -- a wordless pact sealed not by money, blood, or magic, but only by their willingness to make it.

Maybe, Billie thought, it was enough that the two of them, against all the odds, were alive.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from a quote by Aristotle.


End file.
